


to dad, you’re my hero

by sendflares



Category: Doom Patrol (TV)
Genre: Funerals, Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-07-02
Updated: 2019-07-02
Packaged: 2020-06-02 19:21:11
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 600
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/19447924
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/sendflares/pseuds/sendflares
Summary: There’s a strange thing walking up to her, each step a heavy, clunking wheeze.





	to dad, you’re my hero

There’s a strange thing walking up to her, each step a heavy, clunking wheeze. He helps her stand on the rickety box, hesitant for a reason she’s unaware of. 

By the end of her speech, Clara is overwhelmed, taken by grief, her speech loud and rifled with memories of her dad. When she’s done and her tears dry, it doesn’t occur to her to look for the strange thing. A voice echoes at the back of her mind. 

.

Clara Steele is a brave, bold girl. She knows this because people told her all the time, how _strong_ she was, only five years old and recovering from a car crash. She’s ten, now, and still doesn’t know why her dad’s smile goes stiff when she goes, “Daddy, why don’t I have a mom?” She understands death, now, the brave, bold girl she is; why won’t anyone tell her what happened to her mom? 

.

She’s fifteen when she discovers what happened. Her dad sits across from her in their living room. A clock ticks in the background. “Don’t you dare think this makes you my father any less,” Clara says, still bitten by shock. He smiles, though, and all is alright. 

.

“ _..Look at him go! Cliff Steele, champion of two races so soon into the season, manages to shoot into first position, barely avoiding a crash with second in the lead, Jones-_ “ The crappy television set shuts off and a remote is thrown against the wall. It shatters, plastic cracking into minuscule parts, batteries thumping against the carpet. The plasma glow from the television continues to wane.

.

Her dad is wide-eyed, staring at the gift presented to him. Clara hesitantly holds the gold watch out to him. After Bump takes it, he thumbs the engraving for hours. They go out for dinner later on and laugh about the time he broke his leg teaching her to ride a bike. Their family isn’t a plastic tv remote. It’s fixable. 

She’s officially adopted the next day. Clara Weathers.

.

When the funeral is finished and the majority have gone home, it doesn’t feel real. Here she is, at her dad’s funeral. How does that even happen? How the fuck does God take her dad away and the world goes on? But she knows he wouldn’t want her cursing the heavens above, and that makes it harder, because how can she pretend the one family she has isn’t gone, and what a death it was, Jesus Christ-

There’s a strange thing walking up to her, each step a heavy, clunking wheeze. He’s from the funeral, but his costume is now covered in moss and droplets of water. She frantically blinks away tears, baffled by this person in front of her (but not too baffled, of course, because Bump knew a wide variety of people, the eccentric soul he was). Clara’s about to comment on the amazing work, what an amazing piece, are you a cosplayer?, until he pulls out something. It’s covered in algae, but she knows it. His voice continues on. She doesn’t hear it.

Shaking fingers wipe away slime and thumbs the engraving. It’s written onto her heart at this point, but she does it anyway. The last piece she has of dad is with her now. Home. 

By the time Clara looks up, the strange thing is gone. The faint but familiar voice at the back of her head rises into a crescendo. The reassuring hum of a parent, a flight of never-ending stairs, a car almost split in two. She inhales.

A child clings to her father’s hand, smiling up at him.


End file.
